Jesse Lemisch: Intelligence Failures and Iraq

To the Editor:

Re"Powell's Case, A Year Later" February 1, 2004:

These days, the Times seems wedded to the notion that intelligence
failures got us into war in Iraq. I'm no defender of the CIA. But this approach shifts the argument away from the Bush administration's lies, for which abundant evidence was available at the time. So the focus on"intelligence failures" pollutes the air and amounts to a defense of Bush et. al.

Jesse Lemisch, Professor Emeritus of History, John Jay College of
Criminal Justice of the City University of New York.